


Building Up

by LittleUggie



Series: Pack of Strays [4]
Category: Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Will's Dogs are People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 14:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12773007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleUggie/pseuds/LittleUggie
Summary: Harley has a conversation with Hannibal.





	Building Up

**Author's Note:**

> *Throws some more of this AU into the black hole of the internet*

Harley supervises Max and Buster as they put up the new siding on Mrs. Monroe’s house, handing the cut pieces up the ladders to them. The house is in Wolf Trap’s town proper and the older lady had hired them to redo the outside after it was damaged during a bad ice storm. He’d become known around the area as the go to handyman. He even had business cards printed up after the boys showed up and proved themselves willing to help. Though he had to keep an eye on Buster. That boy was too full of mischief for his own good, and he’d get Max stirred up, too. 

The job takes most of the day, but they get it done, and the house certainly looks much better. Mrs. Monroe is happy as she writes them a check. They pack up their tools and the leftover siding and head back to home. There is a conspicuous black Bentley parked in the driveway. Harley leaves the boys to unpack, and goes into the house. He follows an amazing scent into the kitchen where Lecter and Jackson are sitting at the table, peeling vegetables. 

He pauses in the doorway, taking in the scene for a moment, before going in and getting a beer out of the fridge. It is frankly amazing at how well Lecter seems to fit into the scene. He shouldn’t, not with his expensive suits and mysterious accent, but somehow he does. Harley has seen it before. There are some people who are just...pack. They fit in despite everything against them. Harley had never really thought about Will taking a mate, but if he had, Lecter would not have been his first guess. 

“What are you making?” He sits down at the table across from the two. 

“Shepherd’s pie.” Lecter responds. “A comfort food, and easy to make in abundance.” 

Jackson gives Harley one of his tentative smiles. “How did it go today?” 

They chat for a little bit about their day. Lecter listens, to all appearances interested in their conversation. He does not add much, concentrating on the cooking. He moves easily around the kitchen, with a confidence the culinarily challenged Harley finds impressive. 

After finishing his beer, Harley goes and finds Winston. He’s out in the converted barn with Zoe making...something with 2 liter soda bottles. They look up and smile when they see him, but are deeply engrossed in the project. He lets them be and goes to change into comfortable clothes. 

He is really proud of the barn project. He, Will, Max, and Buster had done as much as possible on their own, only calling in professionals to do the wiring and plumbing. Now it has two bedrooms where the stalls had been, a small kitchen in the birthing room, a communal area, and a bathroom in the lower half. The loft held a larger bedroom and ensuite bathroom. They’d put two twin beds and a divider up there for Max and Buster. Harley and Zoe slept in the downstairs ones. 

The home project now is converting the attic of the house into a bedroom, something he’d been planning for a while just didn’t have a pressing need to do. Mostly it’ll just be an issue of clearing it out and putting in an air conditioner/heater unit. But he wants to see about getting rid of the pull down ladder and putting in some actual stair. It is far past time Will got his own room and stopped sleeping in the living room. 

It makes a perfect kind of sense for Will’s room to be in the attic of the house. He covers and watches over his pack. Especially now that he has a mate sniffing around, he needs his own space. It’s actually pretty unusual for a pack to live on top of each other like this. In his old pack, they were spread out over a whole neighborhood. Of course, there were several dozens of lupines living there. 

The alpha’s house was a grand affair, one of the largest in the county. Theoretically, the door was always open to any of the pack, but no one would dare try to walk in without calling first and most would only then go in with an explicit invitation from one of the alphas. It wasn’t a bad pack, and he did miss it sometimes. It was just...they didn’t know how to deal with anything outside their little insular world. Anything different or unpleasant and they were lost. 

After it became obvious he was in with Will for the long haul, he had contacted his old alpha. It was odd after so long. It felt like he had outgrown them, moreso even than when he had first come out of the military. Then he had felt like a square peg trying desperately to pretend he was still round. Now it was easy to see that there was no way he could go back to who he was before. 

Not to mention, living with Will had given him a very different view on what truly makes an alpha. His previous alpha had been an inherited position, the oldest child taking on the mantle, then marrying outside the clan someone of equal political importance. Usually the second or third child of a neighboring pack’s alpha. But Will was a true alpha, his authority came from an inner strength. He had no prior experience with alphas so he had no idea how a ‘proper’ one should act. He didn’t throw his weight around, expect unthinking obedience, or try to stare anyone down. Instead, he just took care of the pack. He found strays who didn’t fit in anywhere else and made them his. 

The funniest part is, most of the time he doesn’t seem to realize that he is an alpha, though every lupine that meets the man could tell. Lecter certainly could. There’s another natural alpha, and he knows it, too. It’s in the way he carries himself, that surety of purpose. Harley isn’t surprised he wasn’t already part of a pack. Someone like that would have no patience for the posturing and politics that goes on in most lupine packs. 

He heads back to the main house. Ellie is just pulling in the driveway next to the Bentley. She raises an eyebrow at him. He gives her a half smile in return. They know each other well enough by now that they don’t always need words. She likes to push Lecter when he is here. Harley won’t participate, it isn’t his way, but he agrees the man needs to be tested. After all, he’s not just hoping to join the pack. He wants to be their second alpha. 

He follows her into the house. She hangs her bag by the door and swans into the kitchen. Hannibal has moved onto sauteing the meat and vegetables. Ellie drapes herself around Jackson’s shoulders where he is still sitting at the table. 

“What brings you back to our humble home, Dr. Lecter?” Ellie asks with a subtle drawl. 

Lecter looks over at her, his face is a pleasant mask, but his eyes say, _ I know exactly what you are doing.  _ “I thought I might make dinner for everyone tonight. I had some free time.” 

“That’s awful nice of you.” 

“I can occasionally be nice.” He says mildly. 

“Just occasionally?” 

“When the mood strikes.” 

“And a certain scruffy looking professor gets you into the mood, eh?” Ellie’s face is a picture of innocence. 

Jackson elbows her gently in the stomach. “Ellie, if you are just here to cause trouble-” 

“Tuck your tail, Jacky, I’m only joking.” She snags a bit of raw carrot off the table and wanders away crunching, tipping Harley a conspiratorial wink on the way out. 

“Your Ellie is quite a character.” Hannibal says. 

“She doesn’t mean to be rude.” Jackson says. 

“Actually, I believe she does, but I understand. I have to earn my place here and the respect of the pack.” 

“Ellie’s not easily won over.” Harley says. 

“I can see that. And what about yourself, Mr. Kaiser?” Lecter glances over at him, as he takes the frying pan off the heat. 

“Call me Harley,” he responds automatically. “And I’m not sure what you mean.” 

“You have been with Will the longest. Surely you have some opinion of my pursuit of him.” 

The man isn’t looking at him, concentrating on the food he is preparing. Harley appreciates this because it gives him a chance to observe him while he chews over his response. Jackson looks between the two of them, brow furrowed. 

“I think,” Harley starts, “that this is serious for you. More serious than Will realizes. His one blind spot is how other people view him. We all see the best in him, and you can, too. But I think he’ll try to pull away from you because he can’t make himself believe that you actually want him. So I don’t have any problems with your ‘pursuit’, but I do think that you have your work cut out for you.” 

They are all quiet as Lecter finishes putting together the dish and slides it into the oven. He wipes own the counter and finally turns toward Harley. “Very astute. I believe you are right.” He smiles, showing just the tips of his canines. “But I also believe anything worth having is worth working hard for.” 

“We’re in agreement there.” The topic drops and the atmosphere lightens as Max and Buster come bustling in, tripping over each other like a couple of pups. 

A little while later, Will rolls in just as Lecter is pulling the shepherd's pie out of the oven. Harley gets a front row seat to Will’s face as he goes through surprise, pleasure, then an almost naked vulnerability as he wars with his self-doubt. He looks away, to give his alpha some room to compose himself. But inside, he smiles. Lecter is good for Will, he is slowly but surely building a place for himself here just as they all have. 


End file.
